Hi Margeret,
Margeret wrote:
I don't mean to be rude here- but it may help you to follow some of
the PSYCHE-D discussions on the Zombie argument. Their structure may
help you to unravel some of your philosophical dead-ends. I don't mean
to suggest that we don't all create them for our selves whentrying to
study the mind and various types of cognitive systems. You may alos be
interested in reading Daniel Dennett's argument on Ned Blocks' On
being a Bat - you'll find that in Dennett's Consciousness Explained.
(Yep- pretty arrogant title)
First of all, I'm not sure what gave you the idea that we were
discussing the consciousness of dogs, or lack thereof. I am familiar
with the What's it like to be a Bat argument, but it seems to belong
in another discussion. Did I ever claim that dogs were conscious, or
not conscious? Is there a specific place where I controversially
describe the subjective mental states of dogs? And what philosophical
dead ends are you referring to?
Personally I am of the opinion that it is always a disappointing
scientific pursuit to speak about 'intelligence' in and of itself - or
even compared with other species. Or to prove that various character
or personality traits are indicative of its presence or absence. For
example- saying that two agents have an IQ of 160 are equally
intelligent is really a silly statement. And correlations are merely
that- correlations.What we as scientists should be more interested in
are causal dynamics. The structure and functions that interplay to
allow for behaviour to appear intelligent. And in all of this we
really are caught in evolution's stranglehold - because we only 'see'
what works. I think it was either von Galsersfeld or Leo Apostel who
claimed that The environment is held for extinction. What ever is
not selected for is selected out. So, we have only our postulates.
Without agreeing or disagreeing with what you say here (and heaven
forbid, without being rude), I am not sure why you are telling me this.
Are you trying to argue with something specific that someone else has
said in the discussion? If so, what? To summarize the state of affairs,
I am not producing a dogie-IQ, rather a list of qualitative features.
I think comparison between human and dog intelligence (for example) is
meaningful because we can point to qualitative features that humans and
dogs both possess, or that humans possess and dogs do not (and vice
versa). All normal humans share the same qualitative features. All
normal dogs share the same qualitative features.
In terms of the role of emotions in contributing towards reasoning,
you may wish to do some serious neuropsyche reading. You could follow
Le Douz, Damasio and that bunch just as a start. I don't mean this to
be rude- it's just a very old and rather precarious Descartesian
supposition that you refer to when you discuss the role of emotions
and the 'extent' to which they contribute to reason. That's the same
mad-making question as trying to figure out exactly how much of the
visual cortex is involved when we do math, for e.g.
Let me quote exactly what I said: Its debatable to what extent emotions
actually contribute to
intelligence ;-. Again, I'll have to think about this I wrote
one sentence. I left the matter open for further discussion. I used a
winking smiley, for crying out loud! I was not stating a serious
position!!!
You allude to the need to integrate some theories of behaviour:
Crikey Moshe! This stunned me! Haven't you heard of Psychology,
Sociology, Political theory, history, theology etc etc... they all
give Theories of Behaviour.
Did you read the original post, or the actual list I wrote
(http://www.republicofheaven.org/doglevel.html)? I am referring to
theories that dogs have of the way other entities behave. Did you
understand this? If so, what stunned you?
But perhaps I didn't get what you REALLY mean?
Maybe not, hope this clarifies things...
Cheers,
Moshe
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